Scenes from Penticton BC during Ironman

Well not pictures or a breakdown on the participants or anything like that...just my experiences with the uber-fit touristas that have decended upon Penticton like latte-sipping locusts and have invaded my peaceful little town of employment during this time of uber-fitness.

Yes, I'm a local now. And now I have to deal with vacuous empty-headed sun-worshippers with low-riding shorts and even lower IQ's that wander into my favourite café when I'm jonesing for caffeine, step up to the counter in front of me and ask in the stupidest voice this side of Paris Hilton: "Um, like, what's the best item here?"

Flash forward five minutes of banal sales pitch from the worried looking cashier (the line is growing as Miss Brain Trust and her pseudo-rapper wannabe boyfriend ponder the fact that there is no "best item" - I mean how do you compare pizza vs panini and determine what is "best"?) and the evil Starbucks' Venti from across the street is starting to look like a much better choice...

Finally the glamour twins settle on a boring order of two souvlakis and get the hell out of my way. Total time to order coffee: eight minutes.

Owner behind the counter asks me what I want.

Large Americano, I say.

No charge, he says.

That's Customer Service, I say.

Just taking care of the regulars, he says. Ironman nonsense only lasts a week...Then life goes back to normal. Don't want you going across the street to the Evil Empire. The beans are better over here.

Superior product and superior service will keep me coming back, I say.

There's a lesson in there somewhere, but the caffeine flowing into me pushes it from my mind...

The Green Fairy

Wasn't this stuff illegal?



And yet here it is in all its greenish glory on the shelves of the BC Liquor Store



I suddenly feel like watching Nicole in Moulin Rouge! again...

With our own money

Canadian?

Bought an iPod in Canada last year (2004)?

Then you can get a refund from Apple Canada, considering that our beloved imperial Canadian government during all of 2004 was assuming that you tech-savvy, mp3 rippin', iPod-totin' bastards were stealing from poor tortured music artistes by the very act of having a mp3 player (Shame on you!) and did the only REASONABLE thing: TAX TAX TAX!

As has been noted in other articles around the web, Apple Canada sincerely hopes that giving you your own money back will make you conveniently forget that Apple raised iPod prices to make sure that consumers -- not Apple Canada -- bore the brunt of this "you're all guilty bastards" tax.

And why wouldn't it work? It works for government all the time...


via the Unofficial Apple Weblog

Cannibal Daddy

Many many years from now, my daughters' psychotherapists will uncover repressed memories of their Daddy re-enacting scenes from Dawn of the Dead (not the 2004 version) with themselves playing the part of tasty humans...

Don't look at me like that.

They're having fun, really...

I can't really be doing that much harm...

I mean, my youngest (age 2 and 2 months) started bawling when she thought I was going to pass her by and not bite her. Suitable monster moaning, baring of my teeth, an ineffectual shuffling zombie lunge toward her and she was laughing louder than she does when she watches The Wiggles (I actually think that some of those guys are zombies, but I digress)

It's not like I'm really biting them and infecting them with zombification...





Well it is more fun writing about this than the sorry state of politics at this time...

Alive!

The blog is alive after an upgrade to Expression Engine 1.3.1 that took some detours into sql database purgatory - everything is back where I left it, and looking like it should.

Whew! That's a relief.